Obesity "as hazardous as smoking" in young men
6 March 2009
Compared with men of normal weight, we found excess risks for overweight and obese men, irrespective of smoking status. 
Dr Neovius, Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden.
Young men who are clinically obese are just as likely to die early as those who smoke, recent research suggests.
According to the study, published in the BMJ, men who are overweight in late adolescence also have an increased risk of premature death.
The research is based on over 45,000 medical records from men conscripted to the Swedish army between 1969 and 1970.
"We wanted to find out the mortality risks associated with smoking and overweight status in late adolescence," lead author Dr Neovius, from the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden, told the Bupa health information team.
The men included in the study were aged between 16 and 20 when the data were collected. For their study, the researchers looked at how many men died before the age of 60.
After 38 years, 2897 men had died. The team found that young men who were obese were twice as likely to die as those with a healthy weight. This was the same increase in risk as smoking heavily (over 10 a day), which also doubled the risk of premature death.
Being overweight and light smoking increased the risk of early death by between 30 and 50 percent. In contrast to some previous studies, the team didn’t find any link between being underweight and a risk of dying early.
"Compared with men of normal weight, we found excess risks for overweight and obese men, irrespective of smoking status," explained Dr Neovius.
"Although the combination of heavy smoking and obesity was associated with a large increase in risk, we found no significant interaction between BMI and smoking status."
The authors acknowledge that there are some limitations to their study. "We had no data on women," Dr Neovius said. "However, the data may be generalizable to women, as it appears as if both overweight and obesity in 18-year-old women are also associated with an increased risk of premature death, according to a US study on female nurses."
The researchers also had no information about how health habits may have changed in the years following the tests, which may have distorted the results.
The authors conclude: "Regardless of smoking status, overweight and obesity in late adolescence increases the risk of adult mortality."
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Related information
- Obesity in children - health factsheet
- Health weight in adults - health factsheet
- Giving up smoking - health factsheet
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